Identification of critical safety barriers in biogas facilities

Abstract Biogas production is growing worldwide. At European level, biogas is among the renewable energy sources whose exploitation is progressing more. Important investments are planned in biogas upgrading facilities for the production of biomethane. The relevant increase in biogas production raises emerging risk issues associated to biogas facilities. In order to systematically explore the hazards related to biogas production and upgrading, a specific methodology (DyPASI - Dynamic Procedure for Hazard Identification) was applied. Despite the great variety of existing plants and components, it was possible to identify reference critical events and cause-consequence chains. The results were used to identify a set of safety barriers for accident prevention and mitigation in biogas production and upgrading facilities.